Vint Cerf is known primarily as one of the founders of the internet in the late 60’s and early 70’s. As a graduate student at UCLA, he tested the first internet hook-ups in 1969. Then as a professor at Stanford in the 70’s, he led a team that developed the underlying communication protocol for the internet - TCP/IP. For the last seven years, he has led ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) through a tumultuous childhood into early adulthood.

ICANN is the organization responsible for the global coordination of the Internet’s system of unique identifiers. Think of ICANN as the world wide governing body for keeping the domain name system (DNS) of .com, .co, .uk, .chn, etc. consistent and usable across nations, languages and networks. Without a strong and clear framework for allowing computers to find and talk to each other via the internet - inefficiency would reign.

Cerf has used his deep knowledge of the internet, warm sense of humor and business insight to work with high level personnel across the world to expand and organize the foundational elements of the internet. He is respected and his leadership will be missed.

The big question now is who will replace him and what effect will this have on the thousands of registrars, domain managers and internet systems that are influenced by ICANN. The short list of potential successors includes telecommunications expert Roberto Gaetano and lawyer Peter Dengate Thrush. Both have been active with ICANN, but neither has Cerf’s name recognition or long-standing ties to the Internet.